An Early Warning Mobile Health Screening and Risk Scoring App for Preventing In-Hospital Transmission of COVID-19 by Health Care Workers: Development and Feasibility Study

Ronald Mbiine; Cephas Nakanwagi; Herve Monka Lekuya; Joan Aine; Kawesi Hakim; Lilian Nabunya; Henry Tomusange

doi:10.2196/27521

An Early Warning Mobile Health Screening and Risk Scoring App for Preventing In-Hospital Transmission of COVID-19 by Health Care Workers: Development and Feasibility Study

JMIR Form Res. 2021 Dec 17;5(12):e27521. doi: 10.2196/27521.

Authors

Ronald Mbiine¹, Cephas Nakanwagi², Herve Monka Lekuya¹, Joan Aine¹, Kawesi Hakim¹, Lilian Nabunya¹, Henry Tomusange¹

Affiliations

¹ Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Kampala, Uganda.
² Mulago National Referral Hospital, Kampala, Uganda.

PMID: 34793321
PMCID: PMC8691406
DOI: 10.2196/27521

Abstract

Background: Hospitals have been identified as very high-risk places for COVID-19 transmission between health care workers and patients who do not have COVID-19. Health care workers are the most at-risk population to contract and transmit the infection, especially to already vulnerable patients who do not have COVID-19. In low-income countries, routine testing is not feasible due to the high cost of testing; therefore, presenting the risk of uncontrolled transmission within non-COVID-19 treatment wards. This challenge necessitated the development of an affordable intermediary screening tool that would enable early identification of potentially infected health care workers and for early real time DNA-polymerase chain reaction testing prioritization. This would limit the contact time of potentially infected health care workers with the patients but also enable efficient use of the limited testing kits.

Objective: The aims of this study are to describe an early warning in-hospital mobile risk analysis app for screening COVID-19 and to determine the feasibility and user-friendliness of the app among health care workers.

Methods: The primary result of this research project was the development of a mobile-based daily early warning system for in-hospital transmission of COVID-19. Overall, the Early Warning System for In-Hospital Transmission of COVID-19 (EWAS) mobile app was found to be feasible, with over 69% of the health care workers having logged more than 67% of the required times. Over 93% of the participants reported that the tool was easy to use.

Results: The primary result of this research project was the development of a mobile-based daily early warning system for in-hospital transmission of COVID-19. Overall, the Early Warning System for In-Hospital Transmission of COVID-19 (EWAS) mobile app was found to be feasible, with 69% of the health care workers (69/100) having logged more than 67% of the required times. Of the 100 participants, 93 reported that the tool was easy to use.

Conclusions: The EWAS mobile app is a feasible and user-friendly daily risk scoring tool for preventing in-hospital transmission of COVID-19. Although it was not designed to be a diagnostic tool but rather a screening tool, there is a need to evaluate its sensitivity in predicting persons likely to have contracted COVID-19.

Keywords: Africa; COVID; COVID-19; digital health; healthcare workers; mHealth; mobile health; pandemic; risk score for Covid-19; screening tool; transmission; warning system.

©Ronald Mbiine, Cephas Nakanwagi, Herve Monka Lekuya, Joan Aine, Kawesi Hakim, Lilian Nabunya, Henry Tomusange. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 17.12.2021.